Here's What I Don't Understand
On April 13, the CDC extended its airline and transit mask mandate for another 15 days, until May 3 . The decision was made in response to the increasing spread of the omicron subvariant in the U.S. and an increase in the 7-day moving average of cases, which have risen by around 25% over the last two weeks nationally. Certain states are seeing much larger increases in new cases. The CDC is following the science with this latest decision, says James Hodge, who directs the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University. "I believe that a two-week period is just enough to say we're watching very carefully," he says. "If we pull this mask mandate, we will have extended numbers of infections — that's not responsible and that's counter to the public's health." However, there has been growing pressure on the Biden administration to lift the mask rule. This in itself is contradictory: the reasons the public health expert quoted ab...